Well, about a week since last... I seem to be slipping a bit here and I think I can tell that I'm not as focused. The writing seems to help me remember and keep everything together.

Last Friday's work was pretty normal as far as I remember. That evening I met dad over in Jersey for a quick chat, then stopped by my sisters to fix her lawnmower.

Saturday was good. We went out in the morning and ended up sleeping through part of the mid-day. We also put the finish coat on the one desk section.

Sunday went pretty well. Went to church and came home to do some cleaning. Then we went over to my parents to do some "work" for my sisters wedding stuff. Another arguement with dad over nothing and came home.

Monday was a quick, long day. The morning nearly blew by and I got some compression done. The afternoon, I was cutting moisture travellers and sorting out some chaos with raw material that seemed to be missing. I ended up working for 9.5 hr to help out with some custom testing where we looked at fiber orientation under the microscope.

Tuesday was ok, but hot. The exterior chiller was off all day so the indoor chiller was on all the previous evening and all day. it was 77 and noisy inside. I ran two tensiles and shipped out the missing material that I found Monday. Also, I ran some fiber volumes with the new guy.

Today was definately noteworthy. I've been trying to run tensiles all day, but keep getting interrupted. The biggest event is that the torsion system is now going to be a priority to get fatigue running. (Just for the ones of my fans... I designed and assembled the torsion system capable of enormous load and destructive capability using 3000 psi hydraulics) Of everything in the lab and shop, including having specimen fail catastophicly within inches of my nose, this is the only piece of equipment that freightens me.

The torsion system is menacing enough when I had direct control of the valve at my fingertips to run static testing. Fatigue testing needs to run automatically unattended for extended periods of time. I've redesigned the control system from the ground up to correct the original design problems that plagued me before from trusting the system. So, I'm going to take a week and tweek up the software to be compatable with the new electronics and let it rip. This is either going to end beautifly or horribly, but at least then we will know.

Wednesday was quite productive. I got all of the squares sliced off for shipment. Then I continued on the WJ and with some help finished blaning the OHT/OHC specimen. I got just a little testing in with the DCB fatigue, but the hinges popped off both sides.

Today was OK. I realized that some specimen were incorrect and spent quite a bit of my morning searching for the panels to get them remade. I think the machinist might still have them, but apparently they are going to be shut down until Monday. I helped setup the mill for processing the blanks we finished yesterday into specimen. The glass ones machined quite well, but the LIL was just a mess. After all that, I got some ILS testing done for a program, realized that we need to order some material from McMaster, and discussed automated chiller changeover operations with someone.

Well, this weekend went pretty much as planned, except I got the date wrong for the pot luck dinner. Instead we stained the straight side of the desk. One coat down, one to go. Unfortunately its been rainy and I've been busy the reamaining portion of this week to date, and have not gotten to the second coat.

Monday went fairly well, and the new hire is off to a good start. I showed him how to operate the WJ and how to do moisture travellers. I was able to get to break some compressions and slice up another balsa panel by hand.

Tuesday was also good. I showed the new guy how to run compression, apply a strain gauge, soldering leads, and running a gauged compression. I was able to knock off some other ungauged testing in the 22 kip frame.

Today's objective is to knock out making 4"x4" squares to be shipped for fire testing, and keep instructing the new guy on procedures. Let's see how well this goes...

Well, yet another plorethera of activities. Ran the WJ to make a single specimen out of a ceramic material, ran the DCB fatigue with more hinge pops, sliced up another balsa sandwich panel, and post-cured some materials. Only one more balsa panel to cut up and I can at least be rid of that pain. Then it will be the other pains for that program.

At least Monday will be the start of a new person to help us out. I can get him to knock off some of the WJ work I have not been able to get to.

This should be a busy weekend. Saturday has a mens breakfast, a trip the the battle of neshaminy, dinner with my family, and a trip to a carnival. Sunday is running the sound board, the youth sunday school, and a pot luck dinner at the church for new members (to again run the sound board). Well, I'll just hpe everything goes smoothly...

Tuesday was a day of interruption. I was post curing a panel in the oven and so I had to check and record the temperature every 5 minutes of ramp up and every half hour or so thereafter. The time between checking I was trying to run some compressions and program Type I ASTM D638 specimens into the waterjet. The day ended with statically failing the last bladder panel. (My bladder problems have now been resolved).

Wednesday, I spent more time with the waterjet and the Type I ASTM D638 in addition to sawing and shipping a panel. I prepared two DCB fatigues, and ran one. On top of that, I spent 4 hours using the wet saws (a large 14" blade wet saw and a small tile saw) just to make a dozen specimen.

Today was spent finding the crack on some of those dozen specimen, preparing the hinges and putting the crack gauges on. I was able to at least witness the fruits of this labor prove what we already knew: the test yeilds poor results that are difficult to interpret into any meaningful result. So, we will keep running them in futility because of contractual obligations. This was interrupted occasionally with DCB fatigue efforts and faulty hinge work. Now to finish the day, I get to sit down and run some compressions.

NOTE: after this post, waterjet will be replaced with WJ so I stop getting waterjet ads on the side of my blog.

Long weekend

Well, Thursday I didn't put anything up and it was not a good day. Mostly I remember a DCB fatigue running 800 cycles, popping a hinge, reworking the specimen, restarting it, running an additional 900 cycles, popping the other hinge, reworking teh specimen, and restarting it. All for one data point -ahhhhh! After that, it was inspecting panels that I failed. They looked ok, but It needed a closer look and it turns out that I was right -- and now I have more work to do because of it.

Friday, I took off and did some stuff around the house. I did some work on the desk construction, and finished the assembly Saturday. All thats left is the staining, which will be a full days work. I fixed the main toilet - always fun.

Saturday - More of the same and went to the grocery store.

Sunday, get up early for 7AM sunrise service to run the audio mixer. The service went well, and there was a breakfast afterwards. Then, did some cleaning at home, and changed the oil in my car. I decided to check tire pressures while I was at it. My wife's car was 5 psi short all around and I was missing around 10 psi all around. So I inflated the 8 tires and then went down to the in-laws. Good turkey and stuffing... and mashed potatoes... and everything else.

After I got home, I got some dinner together and my sister stopped by with some of her leftovers since she wouldn't be able to finish them... and I have no issue finishing leftovers. Had dinner, and chilled out the rest of the evening.

Today, I got to do some microscopy to prove that I was right about some issues (see Thursday), then I got deligated to cut panels in the shop. Cut panels til the saw overheated, then did some compressions. Then I cut panels til the saw overheated, then I did some compressions. Then I made the final saw cuts. I had to send out some material because a batch of specimens didn't get cut properly, and clear out some paperwork. Not a great day, but could have been worse.

The slumps

Wow, I just can't seem to get things going. I started by getting the next DCB fatigue preped and loaded, and the hinge popped off in 21 cycles. The hinges I sanded yesterday apparently get roughed up enough and needed to be redone. The reports I sent out last week included panels that failed, and so now I need to determine why. At least that will be interesting when they arrive.

I finished the morning by locating crack tips for some static DCBs.

So, I took care of some odds and ends then started gauging compression specimen. Apparently, I cantt do that right today either. The glue wasn't adhering properly, I had one lay down incorrectly and of course that one adhered instantly and could not be repositioned.

Lastly, I decided that I need to do something that is nearly impossible to do incorrectly. I'm testing some of the ungauged compression specimen. The first one I did just mushroomed the bottom of the specimen (improper failure mode). The next 9 were specimen that really should not be considered real tests, but that is not my decision - they just need to get run for the sake of the contract. And now I need to get out of here.

Monday went well. I sat and ran tensile coupons all day. I also started a new DCB fatigue level, so that is going to require more of my attention on a regular basis. We got the details of a new test program that we have yet to receive the material to test, and we are already unable to complete the testing by the deadline!

Tuesday just started off wrong. The prep work I did for tabbed tensiles didn't work, and I could not do anything right. I spent the rest of the day sanding DCB hinges.

Burrito Trifecta

So, Saturday was just one big annoyance. The only high point was that I stopped at Taco Bell for some burritos. So to explain the burrito trifecta: Friday lunch: Burrito Mexicana from Baja Fresh, Saturday Lunch: 3 Taco Bell Cheesy Double Beef Burritos, Sunday Lunch: 2 frozen Burritos.

Sunday was pretty good. We went to the early service since the 9:15 was cancelled for Palm Sunday. Got home, and cleaned up. I did some quick research about antennas and then went to the bank and ACE hardware to pick up some odds and ends for the antenna work I wanted to do.

I started work on the antenna just after lunch. I put the new section of mast in and moved the grounding wire from the previous antenna location to the antenna mast mount on the house. The Old section of mast was attached to the first, and I sanded the metal to provide a better ground connection between the mast sections. The ground wire extended up the new mast section and terminated at a grounding block for the coax signal wire. I ran an extra ground wire from the antenna mast mount up to the antenna u-bolt just to make sure that the upper mast section has a clean ground even though it is extraneous.

The First section I had of antenna wire was a homemade length with twist on connectors. I don't like the twist on connectors, but I tried it anyway. I had no signal. I tried rotating the antenna a little bit with no change. So, I ran out and got a 12' coax cable just to make sure it wasn't a faulty section of wire. After stopping at Lowes, we took the dog to Playwiki Park for a walk. More on that later. I got back swapped the wire, and nothing. Rotated the antenna AWAY from the boradcast antennas, and it got better. Then I spun the antenna back to where the antennas should be (original direction with the homemade cable) and I got the basic channels. I'm getting fed up with this. I called it a night and plugged the TV back into the rabbit ears.

So, Playwiki Park was a nice distraction. I had driven past it a long time ago, but this was the first time I stopped. We took a nice long hike through the trails and saw some wildlife and a limestone quarry that apparently had signifigant historical value due to the quality of the ore and that it wasn't located adjacent to any nearby quarrys. We met a few other dogs, including a 3 month old german sheppard puppy that was behaving very nicely off-leash. I was surprised how well this 3 month old was behaved.

Sunday, we had dinner at Appleby's just because I didn't feel like cooking after all the antenna work of the day.

Filling the shoes of the missing

Well, I spent pretty much the entire day in the shop. I don't mind working in the shop, but I prefer testing. I started by taking an 8 year old scrap panel and dicing it into 3" wide lengths. Then I milled a 15° edge down the one side leaving roughly 1/16" of blunt edge of the 1/4" thick piece. Then I degreased, dried and sandblasted it to get it ready to adhere to the panel that will be tested (Switching to ASTM D3039 from dog-bone shaped coupons) The afternoon, I spent waterjetting a panel while assembling the two new chairs for the lab. Lastly I pitched in with the DCB-prep. All of this while the outside chiller is not operational (it died late yesterday, but the reset for the thermal overload was easily reset after some research by my coworker).